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I'm heading there in a month or so, then onwards to St Helena - I have a penchant for wanting to visit weird and remote places. Taking a drone, I might post footage here. Getting permission to visit is a laugh, I had to write to the governor and explain why I want to come (last sailing of last mail ship).
Mods, can we make the title less click-baiting? Perhaps by appending “(Ascension Island)” to the end?
I'm heading there in a month or so, then onwards to St Helena - I have a penchant for wanting to visit weird and remote places. Taking a drone, I might post footage here. Getting permission to visit is a laugh, I had to write to the governor and explain why I want to come (last sailing of last mail ship).
I probably will never visit St Helena, but it makes me kind of sad that such remote places end up getting an international airport and an influx of tourists.
She'd never left the island before she was 18, when Britain paid for her to attend university in the UK. Once in Britain, she had more money than her parents could ever get, but visiting her parents still took the best part of a month for the trip to be worthwhile.
Without an airport, the island would probably depopulate.
As for the radio stations, there's a LORAN station, to provide a navigational marker in the South Atlantic. NASA had a tracking station there for Apollo, but it was closed and abandoned in the 1990s. The USAF has a tracking station there now, for communicating with various space assets.[1] As an intercept station, it would be marginal; there's nobody to listen to.
[1] http://www.patrick.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet_print...
Of course it's sad they lost the native species, but otherwise Darwin's plan is really interesting. They increased the biomass of the island and got forests to grow.
I don't shed many tears for the species that had a protected niche and never managed to do much with it. In the long run, Earth needs species that can quickly colonize hostile environments and make them more biologically productive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well... Who ran the comms stuff?
It's an island in the middle of the ocean, placed between two continents, with limited, military-controlled access by the US and UK. I don't think I'd need a spoiler tag to say government intelligence agencies.
Of course it's sad they lost the native species, but otherwise Darwin's plan is really interesting. They increased the biomass of the island and got forests to grow.
Of course, they might just save themselves a bit of time by introducing all the invasive species at once. Let them duke it out in a battle royale, rather than bringing them in one at a time, to control and/or compete with the previously introduced invasive species. I don't shed many tears for the species that had a protected niche and never managed to do much with it. In the long run, Earth needs species that can qui…
So let's hear a cheer for protection from hostile environments.
I'm heading there in a month or so, then onwards to St Helena - I have a penchant for wanting to visit weird and remote places. Taking a drone, I might post footage here. Getting permission to visit is a laugh, I had to write to the governor and explain why I want to come (last sailing of last mail ship).
I'd be interested to hear if you're allowed to fly your drone anywhere.
Even without a drone I've had (occasionally gunpoint) dealings with all sorts of bemused security forces around the world, so not too worried.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course, they might just save themselves a bit of time by introducing all the invasive species at once. Let them duke it out in a battle royale, rather than bringing them in one at a time, to control and/or compete with the previously introduced invasive species. I don't shed many tears for the species that had a protected niche and never managed to do much with it. In the long run, Earth needs species that can qui…
You -- unless you are a Pygmy or Sen or the like -- are a species that lived in a protected niche for 100,000 or more years without making much of it. Then you -- we -- figured out writing and agriculture and pottery. The next logical step was semiconductor laser photolithographic doping and here we are on the internet sharing photos of cats. So let's hear a cheer for protection from hostile environments.
It wasn't until humanity left its protected niche that it really did anything interesting. And now we are the only ones capable of intentionally spreading life to other planets. So if your species took a gamble and made an alliance with humanity early, congratulations, you get to survive the planet-death extinction event someday. Good job, dogs and apple trees! Poor show, guinea worm and smallpox.